So, we’re a week away from one of the most talked about, baffling, and confusing games of all time (and bear in mind the previous adjectives apply to a game that hasn’t yet been released). What do we know so far? We know that the player takes control of Norman Reedus, carrying a fetus in a synthetic womb, while he works his job as some kind of delivery man in a rainy post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Related: 10 Games To Play If You Love Borderlands 3

Or something. Well, no doubt all will become clear next week. Although, on second thought, knowing Hideo Kojima, maybe it won’t. The gaming giant has actually chimed in, saying that Death Stranding is an entirely new type of game that doesn’t fit into any existing genre. The following list consists of ten games, also of their own unique genre, to play while you wait for Kojima’s latest release.

10 Metal Gear Solid

It’s no surprise that Kojima’s baby is in the list. Although it was arguably 1987’s Metal Gear that spawned the genre, it was the PlayStation sequel that made sneaking a staple of everyday gameplay. The unique camera angles – panning around as you stood against a wall – the epic boss fights, and the lengthy cut-scenes made Metal Gear Solid a cinematic experience, too. We hadn’t seen a game so similar to a movie before this. And, what was more impressive, the in-game graphics were used for the cinematics, rather than pre-rendered scenes typical of the time.

9 The Last Of Us

Even with the sequel due next year, it’s hard to see how Naughty Dog’s magnum opus can be bettered. Ellie and Joel’s relationship is one of the most heart-wrenching in gaming, and the brutal story was a step away from the developers’ typical light-hearted yarns. But what makes The Last of Us truly in a genre of its own is the seamless combination of stealth and survival horror. Luring a clicker away with a brick, before sneaking past – knowing your gun has only three bullets – still strikes fear into our hearts. There hasn’t been anything quite like this since.

8 Resident Evil 4

Although the original Resident Evil was the start of a genre in itself, the fourth in the series really stands out in its innovativeness. With it, we saw the birth of a new genre as Capcom slickly morphed “survival horror” into “action horror”. The gore and jump-scares were still there, but the fixed camera-angles shifted to a behind-the-shoulder view, the zombies were replaced by axe and chainsaw-wielding villagers, and everything got a lot more intense.

7 Silent Hill

The developers of Silent Hill – known as Team Silent – were evidently unimpressed by the obviousness of Resident Evil’s zombie horror. They decided to create something more subtle, which consequently turned out to be a million times more unsettling. Protagonist Harry Mason isn’t a member of an elite police squad, but a regular guy – a non-fiction writer. After losing his daughter in a mysterious town, a series of hallucinatory events take place. We’re never sure what’s real, and what’s in Harry’s mind. And the fact that the unsettling imagery is so sparse makes it so effective. Many games have taken influence from it, such as The Evil Within, but at the time Silent Hill was in a genre of its own.

6 The Orange Box

It’s strange to include a compilation here – and while Team Fortress is entertaining and Half Life 2 a masterpiece – it’s Portal that places it in this list. Puzzler’s are a regular fixture of indie games, especially today, but it was unusual to see one in the mainstream back in 2007.

Related: 10 Games To Play If You Love Animal Crossing

What really makes Portal stand out though, is the intricacy of the puzzles, the use of gravity, momentum and strange angles – you really had to think outside the box (pun intended). There was a sequel, but apart from that, there really isn’t anything else quite like it.

5 Shadow Of The Colossus

Let’s have a look Death Stranding again; an open world, atmospheric and – by the looks of things – breath-taking. Released on the PlayStation 2 in 2005, Shadow of the Colossus did all this and then some. A spiritual-sequel the 2001’s ICO, Colossus was just as inventive and unique. Players take control of Wander and his loyal horse Argo, as they roam beautiful landscapes, fighting colossi in an attempt to resurrect a girl named Mono. Even today, it’s a heart-wrenching masterpiece, and it stands in its own category.

4 Okami

Modelled on The Legend of Zelda, potentially the godfather of open-world adventure, Okami retells Japanese mythology and folklore. The cel-shaded graphics were a happy accident, after developers Clover Studio realised that full rendering would be too much of a strain on the PlayStation 2. But they could never have realised that this decision would make Okami one of the most visually stunning games ever made. There was a spiritual sequel for the DS, but Okami is still the only console game of its kind.

3 Papers, Please

Carrying the subtitle “A Dystopian Document Thriller”, it goes without saying that this game doesn’t fit into a mainstream genre. Players take control of an immigration officer (another unusual video game prospect) in the fictional nation of Arstotzka. The premise is to check the immigration papers of all who want to enter the country.

Related: 10 Hardest Choices In Telltale Games

Multiple moral conundrums appear – the protagonist gets paid to do their job correctly, the money of which goes to his family. Yet sometimes a desperate and starving immigrant with the wrong papers needs to get through. And what about the unsavory characters with all the right papers? If you’re bored of triple A releases, you won’t find a more peculiarly brilliant game than this.

2 LA Noire

With LA Noire, Rockstar took a cerebral spin on the sandbox genre. On the surface it may look like Grand Theft Auto in the forties, but you’d be wrong to assume that, and unwise not to play it. The story follows an LAPD officer, back from fighting overseas in WWII, who solves numerous cases as he works his way up the force. His backstory is slowly revealed as the plot progresses, like a CGI Don Draper. But what makes this game unlike any other, is the changing facial expressions of the suspects and witnesses as you’re questioning them. Are they lying? Only you can decide.

1 A Plague Tale: Innocence

While there are numerous stealth-action games out there, there are few set in fourteenth century France. Players take control of Amicia de Rune, a young woman of noble descent, who suddenly finds herself on the run with her brother Hugo. While avoiding plague-ridden rats and murderous inquisition soldiers, they traverse the beautiful landscape of medieval Aquitaine in search of the mysterious truth about Hugo.

Next: 10 Games To Play If You Love Yakuza 0